Process control alarm systems are utilized in the area of factory automation and/or plants. A process control alarm system is employed in a distributed control system (DCS) of factories and/or plants. Within the plants, various manufacturing processes include machines and equipment, which can be constantly monitored by a number of process control alarms. Specifically, these process control alarms inform operators that a process has exceeded process control tolerance limits.
Today, a software interface, especially GUI (Graphical User Interface), is utilized to aid the operators in understanding the overall process control alarms and associated variables of one or more machines. Process control alarm variables are set and monitored through a GUI interface. In such alarm systems, operators can receive a large number of alarms within a short period of time, which is referred to as an “alarm flood.” Alarm floods are the phenomenon of presenting more alarms in a given period of time than a human operator can effectively respond to. Such alarm floods are inherently difficult for operators to cope with and current systems so not support an operator in recognizing and dealing with abnormal or crisis situations that may result in numerous alarms.
In one a known alarm management approach, alarm systems can create an alarm summary display to improve alarm system performance through improved alarm rationalization and alarm system maintenance practices. These efforts can have a considerable impact on reducing the likelihood of alarm flooding indications in an operator console through better alarm configuration and effective use of suppression techniques. However, even the alarm summary display does not effectively eliminate the occurrence of alarm flooding to assist operators.
The majority of prior alarm systems describe the visualization or design of a traditional alarm summary list of alarms in the DCS systems. These alarms summary lists pertain to how to configure or manage alarms, but they do not aid the operator to easily handle the alarm floods in the DCS systems. Such an alarm system is not sufficient to reduce alarm loads to a level that human operators can mentally process and physically respond to. Therefore, it is desirable to provide effective display design techniques to help operators cope with these inevitable alarm floods.
In an effort to address the foregoing difficulties, it is believed that a need exists for an improved alarm trend summary display system and method, which assists human operators in coping with alarm floods. It is believed that the improved system and method disclosed herein can address these and other continuing needs.